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The album was originally released as an LP on September 22, 1969. After a number of reissues on vinyl, cassette tape, and compact disc, it was remastered and rereleased, with bonus tracks, in 2000, in a process overseen by Robbie Robertson. (The 2000 re-release has also been packaged as a double CD with The Band's debut album Music from Big Pink.)

The album was also reissued in 2009 by Audio Fidelity as a limited edition gold CD. Remastered from a 1980s CD pressing[citation needed], the album also included a single b-side "Get Up Jake" as a bonus track. "Get Up Jake", which also appears on the 2000 reissue, was slated for inclusion in the original album, but was dropped from the line-up at the last minute, either because the band felt it was too similar to another track on the album, or because there physically wasn't enough room on the album.[6][7]

The album includes many of The Band's best-known and critically acclaimed songs, including "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", which Rolling Stone named the 245th greatest song of all time (in the updated version,[8] it was the 249th greatest song of all time). In 2003, the album was ranked number 45 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 1998 Q magazine readers voted The Band the 76th greatest album of all time. TIME magazine included it in their unranked 2006 list of the 100 greatest albums. Robert Christgau, having been disappointed with their debut, had expected to dislike the record and even planned a column for The Village Voice to castigate their followup. Upon hearing the record, however, he declared it better than Abbey Road, which had been released four days following, writing that The Band's LP is an "A-plus record if I've ever rated one."[2] He ranked it as the fourth best album of the year in his ballot for Jazz & Pop magazine's annual critics poll.[9]

The Band peaked at #9 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. In 2000, it recharted on Billboard's Internet Albums chart, peaking at #10. The singles "Rag Mama Rag" and "Up on Cripple Creek" peaked on the Pop Singles chart at #57 and #25 respectively.

In 2009, the album was preserved into the National Recording Registry because the album was "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or informs or reflects life in the United States."